CREEDE HINSHAW: Cordele senator a drive-by homelessness expert

Georgia State Senator Carden Summers, R-Cordele, purports to have the solution for Atlanta homelessness. He introduced a bill in the Georgia Senate this week to solve the problem by forbidding cities to use federal funds to build permanent housing for homeless persons. In addition, the bill (“Reducing Street Homelessness Act”) will reduce the amounts of money nonprofits and helping agencies can receive to address homelessness and will criminalize homeless persons who sleep on state property.

You have read correctly: solve “street homelessness by reducing funding for both government and nonprofit agencies, reducing available options for those on the front line and cite people for being homeless on state property.

While no single approach will solve the almost intractable homelessness problem, it is counter-productive to squash the agencies (government and nonprofit) who are on the frontlines of the ameliorating human need.

What exactly are Sen. Summers’ qualifications to tell Atlanta how to solve its street homelessness problem? How did a man from Crisp County develop the wisdom over the years to craft such a stupendously short-sighted bill to “help” Fulton County?

Summers, citing his personal research, apparently understands how to combat homelessness after he spent a few nights counting homeless people. As he described it in a hearing last week, he would “ride around (Atlanta) almost every night, take 30 minutes … and count the homeless people.”

Those few half-hour sashays around the Georgia Capitol qualifies Summers as a Drive-by Homelessness Expert.

What would the people of Crisp County think if an Atlanta Senator drove through Cordele counting the watermelon patches, thus qualifying him or her to write farm legislation that applied only to select rural counties? Did Summers have any conversations with leading Atlanta nonprofits? With leading government officials? Did he climb out of his car and engage any homeless people, or was he too busy tallying desperate people to engage in conversation?

This homelessness act follows the script of a Texas-based conservative not-for-profit that has touted similar laws in a number of Southern states. Texas, the state with an outsized ego whose officials filed an outrageous, failed 2020 lawsuit to invalidate Georgia’s presidential election, apparently knows what is best for the rest of us.

Reports indicate this bill targets major urban areas. Thanks to the bill’s formula, county seat towns like Cordele will undoubtedly be exempt from the provisions of this bill, while Albany, Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Athens and Augusta may be negatively affected, depending on the number of homeless persons in each city.

I am no expert when it comes to combatting homelessness. Many hands make for light work; no one solution fits every circumstance. The major population areas in this state have dedicated, loyal, deeply committed persons in government, church and not-for-profit agencies, working together to alleviate human suffering. This bill, propped up by drive-by statistics and apparently supported by the leadership of our state Senate, would be a step in the wrong direction.